4.45 am and I should be allowed to sleep

We have new neighbors.

You may remember that there are three main houses on our compound, with seven or eight smaller shack-like homes behind us. Since we have been here, one of these three homes has been vacant and the other behind us was filled with the landlord’s daughter and her family who have been very helpful to us.

The vacant house is not vacant any more. It is a common layout for Samoa, the house is one big house room. I’m not kidding, it’s just a big square with a roof and they pile people into in and all just sleep on the floor. There are always truckfuls of people coming and going around our house. None of the families who live in the shacks have cars, so they are always getting dropped off and walking through our compound to get home. This is why we didn’t even realize at first that people had moved in, and then we heard them.

It was dark outside, and we were all fast asleep. Suddenly there is clapping and chanting. “What on earth is going on?”, we thought. The chanting and clapping gets louder and louder, the harmonies begin and there are Hallelujah’s and Praise the Lord’s and a lot of Samaon singing. After a few minutes, one lady starts screaming like she is in pain, this gets louder and louder until she is hoarse. The time? 4.45am. This “morning worship” continues for 30 minutes and then just stops as if nothing happens, and it is night again. Except that we couldn’t go back to sleep of course.

We were hoping these were just visitors and we’d just ignore it, but the next day, the exact same thing happened again. They don’t have noise ordinances or disturbing the peace or anything here (believe me, we looked into it). Living here you just have to go with the flow and deal with things. We decided to go and talk to our neighbors and that’s when we found out these people were renting. Oh my. I thought I was a pretty tolerant person, but I guess I fooled myself.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have 13 articles of faith. These are statements that describe a number of doctrines and principles of our religion, expressing some of the differences between our beliefs and the beliefs of others. Anyway, number 11 says that “we claim the privilege of worshipping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.”

Basically this means that we believe that all people should be free to practice their own religion. I felt like amending it to “and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may, as long as that worship doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night on a daily basis!” Just kidding. Shouldn’t people just generally be aware of those around them, and not inflict their practices on others who are not willing participants? I don’t know, maybe I’m just whining, but I am sleep deprived after all.

Like I said, this “worship” went on for 30 minutes. I have only included a 25 second video clip to give you a sample so that you wouldn’t have to go through the torture we did. Plus, I’m not waking you up to listen to it. Oh, and the window was closed when I filmed this, just in case you were wondering!

“We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others…” D&C 134:4